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Showing posts with the label halloween

HALLOWEEN: H20 - VLOG REVIEW

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Stream in which I review Halloween: H20 , talk porn parodies, time travel horror movies and more.

HALLOWEEN (2018) - VLOG REVIEW

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Getting into the spirit of this month with a review of the recent Halloween remake.

PET SEMATARY (2019) - VLOG REVIEW

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Today I talk about the Pet Sematary remake... and sing a little bit.

HEREDITARY - VLOG REVIEW

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Reviewing Hereditary today as my horror vlog month continues...

THE VVITCH - VLOG REVIEW

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Vvatch this review of The VVitch and stay tuned for another horror review tomorrow!

IT: CHAPTER TWO - VLOG REVIEW

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Flooding your eyes with reviews this Halloween month as I attempt to post one horror vlog a day... every day. Starting with my review of IT: Chapter Two .

CASPER - REVIEW

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With computer-generated effects having reached a noticeable level of sophistication in the mid-90's, more and more films decided to use CGI in a bold way including Jumanji and Casper , both released the same year. The latter also jumping on the old cartoon/comic-book remake bandwagon. While critics were generally lukewarm towards this movie, audiences flocked to it making Casper a significant box-office hit back in 1995. The film opens with the obligatory nod to the classic cartoons as a group of kids enter a creepy mansion, take one look at the typically friendly Casper and freak out completely. We are then introduced to paranormal therapist Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman) and his daughter Kat (Christina Ricci) as Casper encourages them to visit him and they are hired by shady haunted mansion owner Carrigan (Cathy Moriarty) to get rid of its ghosts once and for all. Casper takes a shine to Kat but his Ghostly Trio "uncles" Stretch, Stinkie and Fatso start to cause

DO WE NEED ANOTHER FLATLINERS?

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Some thoughts on the new Flatliners .

PAY THE GHOST - REVIEW

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One of the two films Nicolas Cage starred in last year was Pay The Ghost , a supernatural thriller about a father whose son disappears all of a sudden on Halloween night. Of course, the film then doesn't try to say anything about loss or neglect like, say, The Orphanage , instead going for a ludicrous horror mystery plot you'd have to be pretty darn high to even consider believing. The film's first mistake, really, was to have Cage running around frantically looking for his son dressed up like a cowboy. If that doesn't suck all the potential drama out of the scene, I don't know what could. Oh sure it's a riot and as a fan of the actor's wackier efforts I'm loving it! But silly stuff like this doesn't help the film much, unless giving us an early hint that it builds up to a truly absurd ending counts as helping. Now, you could have easily told an interesting, heartfelt story here about a bad father who loses everything but tries to make up for

THE BIG REWIND: EPISODE 63 - PODCAST

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In this 63rd episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review  SPECTRE  and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

CRIMSON PEAK - REVIEW

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Taking a page out of his own Silent Hill video game demo P.T., visionary director Guillermo Del Toro helped us celebrate Halloween this year with a horror movie mostly set in a creepy, conveniently lit house packed with monstrous ghosts. Crimson Peak is an old-fashioned ghost story through and through complete with a period setting and a convoluted whodunit plot. Wonderland alumni Mia Wasikowska stars as the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur who falls in love with a not-so-wealthy entrepreneur with big ideas, she and the latter (a charmingly dodgy Tom Hiddleston) marry and he invites her back to his crumbling, red clay-infested big house in the middle of nowhere where he lives with his clearly evil sister (Jessica Chastain). To nobody's surprise, this whole arrangement doesn't go that well. Terrifying ghosts start showing up, the sister loses it little by little and the fact it's snowing (and claying) indoors doesn't help either. Eventually, this new husband's

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS - REVIEW

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What's this?! A movie that's both perfect for Christmas AND Halloween, not to mention a treat for Burtonites and Oingo Boingo aficionados? What. Is. This? It's The Nightmare Before Christmas , of course. Henry Selick's stop-motion Disney classic based on the gothic surrealism of Tim Burton who contributed the story and the characters while Danny Elfman not only took on the music and the lyrics but voiced the Pumpkin King himself, Jack Skellington, during the songs with Chris Sarandon on voicing duties the rest of the time. The film quickly became a Christmas and Halloween tradition since its plot cleverly merged both holidays in a unique way without coming off as overly gimmicky. After a thrilling opening number, "This Is Halloween", which introduces us to Halloweentown and its spooky inhabitants (vampires, witches, you name it), we finally meet Skellington, the bony showman who has been making the best out of every single Halloween, wowing the to

GOTHAMIZED: GOATAMIZED - PODCAST

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Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 10th episode, we discuss the sixth episode of  Gotham , goats, Halloween costumes, Dolly Parton and chickens. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

THE BIG REWIND: EPISODE 44 - PODCAST

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In this 44th episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review Dracula Untold  and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

THE BABADOOK - REVIEW

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Good news, everyone! Mel Gibson is no longer the scariest thing to come out of Australia! This Halloween, the likes of Ouija and Annabelle may have competed for the box-office top spot but it's likely to be off-beat Australian entry The Babadook  we'll remember long after as it's very likely to become a cult hit and inevitably should spawn several sequels. Also, its silly title is pretty unforgettable not to mention a lot of fun to say out loud. The movie sees a super stressed-out and frankly worn-out mother (played by Essie Davis) attempt to take care of her hyper, trouble-making young son several years after her husband died in a car accident. Her misery does nothing but increase like crazy throughout the movie as her so-called friends fail to support her emotionally, shunning her and her son, the boy's school comes down on him unfairly and insensitively, plus there's the small matter of a creepy children's book called The Babadook which freaks th

HOCUS POCUS - REVIEW

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Some Halloween movies are just perfect. Perhaps not perfect as movies but perfect movies for that season and Hocus Pocus is definitely one of those. The film sees Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimi play the Sanderson Sisters, a trio of witches from Salem who thrive on stealing the lifeforce from children. One day, they are hung after essentially murdering a child and turning some kid into a cat (talk about a busy day) but a curse on the town prophesizes their deadly return. Cut to 300 years later and some idiot kid gets the bright idea to light the black fire candle which brings the witches back to present day (well, 1993) Salem. The latter have one night to recover their beloved spell book and feed some potion to whatever virgin they can get their hands on otherwise they're gone for good so the race is on. Cue quite a few Dark Shadows -style temporal fish-out-of-water jokes, a lot of Halloween-related shenanigans and the usual clichés that come with most

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH - REVIEW

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Not exactly the most popular Halloween sequel upon its release, Halloween III: Season Of The Witch pissed people off for several reasons: 1/ No Michael Myers, 2/ It was the start of an anthology series of films not involving anything from the first two Halloween movies, and 3/ No witch. In retrospect, this whole anthology idea was really not a bad one. Also, as a Twilight Zone -esque piece of random horror weirdness, Season Of The Witch worked very well and managed to not only be effective with its overall slow-building mystery but with its gory/creepy moments. Plus it was completely out of its mind, which is always good with that kind of movie. It's a shame the film didn't steer the series towards that direction seeing as all the other Halloween sequels were either underwhelming or just plain dire but it's easy to see why, at the time, it didn't take off. For one thing, we go from a relatively straight-forward slasher story to something pretty surreal and out-the

TOP 10 TWILIGHT BREAKING DAWN PART 2 LOLS

Read the review HERE .

MONSTER HOUSE - REVIEW

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After The Polar Express , one of the weirdest-looking animations of recent times, Robert Zemeckis then decided to (wisely) go down the Pixar route and gave up on trying to get his characters to look as real as possible, instead keeping them stylized and cartoonish to a certain extent. This worked out ok for A Christmas Carol and this earlier, Halloween-themed effort which he produces. Monster House sees a group of 3 kids find out that the house across the street, where a scary old man lives, is not only haunted but alive and literally attacking people if they get too close. It's an odd but kinda genius take on the slasher genre as our serial killer isn't even flesh and blood but wood and brick! I love the design of the house, by the way, director Gil Kenan ( City Of Ember ) finds a whole bunch of clever ways to make it into a real threat for our characters: its walls become teeth, the trees around it become its arms and hands, it swallows anything that lands on its front

PHENOMENA - REVIEW

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Well, it's Halloween, so what better to review but a film by the master of Italian horror himself? Yes, I'm talking about Dario Argento, of course. Armed with an army of flies, a gloriously inappropriate rock opera soundtrack and buckets of shattered glass and blood, Phenomena (also known as "Creepers" ) is certainly one of those must-watch silly horror flicks. Troll 2 gets all the love these days but Phenomena, though it's made somewhat more pertinently (visually at least), is a completely entertaining oddity that's well worth seeing for any fan of trashy/arty horror. A young Jennifer Connelly leads a mostly lost cast and actually does a decent job considering her lines are about as silly as they come. Donald Pleasence, however, doesn't seem too sure about why he's having to interact with an ape almost every scene he's in while spouting out convenient bags of quirky exposition. Everyone else is mostly rubbish and, as such, help provide ton